Areas of Interest

My wife just put her first kickstarter online – she wanted to do foodbox holders or architecture, but I convinced her to create something useful first, so she made me some tracks for my FOW train.Its mostly about learning how to do kickstarter, but if there is demand… the Standard Gauge set will be Free for all if it funds, the four other Gauges will be for campaigners only.

Neal, I realize that the existing files are a bit large for scaled 1:56 print. I will ask my wife if she can dump me the 1:56 file with 8 ties – and if possible in large scale quality. I need that for my Bolt Action table anyway, and depending on your printer the quality will leap if the majority of the lines are not diagonal. If I get it, I will include it in the free trial set. Tomorrow, though…

@Chris – rivet counting is good, as far as I am concerned. Doing things right in detail is one of the goals of this campaign. Do you by chance know how the Soviet tie-plates during WW2 look? I did some research and came out mainly empty, with just one image showing a similar plate. I know from German reports on regauging that they used a three-spike system.

As far as the models are concerned, the files are not yet set in concrete (or steel). If your image shows how most rails in the 20th century looked, I will petition for a change, or even an alternative set. However, with the possible variety of ties and connectors around, gaps will remain.

I will do a tour on Thursday – other work interferes, and my wife is really not into tabletop gaming :-)

That said – we tried to toggle the spiked plate:

The printed result, however:

is imho not yet sufficient. It needs some quality circles before it meets the compromise between historical accurate and printable.

Nonetheless, I put the file online, but will not link that (yet) in the Kickstarter campaign, as the printout results may scare off potential backers. So, with a grain of salt for the 1:56 buffs here (305k):dastri.de/docs/ks1/track56.zip

Chris, thanks for these images. MiniArt releases two versions, Standard and Russian Gauge in 1:35 – the Russian rails are what I was looking for – though the tie plate I have on picture seem to be a bit different. I will try to dig out an online version of it.The provided files in 1:100 do not use spikes but rather the screwed plates used by the Reichsbahn since 1928, the Oberbau K (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberbau_K) – or rather the version of it we deemed fitting for small scale print. We will use the Russian spiked plate for the 5" gauge. Nonetheless, a version with spikes that can be used for the 19th century conflicts – be it the ACW, the various conflicts in Europe (French/German war of 70/71 eg) or the Boer war would be great. I failed in undigging a comprehensive history of tracks – though we do have a book incoming that covers the British tracks from 1804…